In the above-identified parent application, there is disclosed one embodiment of a radially resilient electrical socket of the type sometimes referred to as a barrel terminal and a method for making the barrel terminal disclosed in that application.
In barrel terminals of the general type with which the present invention is concerned, contactor strips or wires are stretched and extend through the interior of a cylindrical sleeve from a first circumferential location at one end of the sleeve to a second circumferential location at the opposite end of the sleeve which is angularly displaced about the sleeve axis from the first circumferential location. A plurality of such strips so mounted within a cylindrical sleeve collectively lie on a surface of revolution of a generally hourglass shape whose diameter varies from a minimum diameter midway between the ends of the sleeve and a maximum diameter at the ends of the sleeve. When a cylindrical electric contact of a diameter intermediate the minimum and maximum diameters referred to above is axially inserted into such a barrel terminal, the contactor strips will collectively exert a radially resilient grip upon the contact.
Prior art barrel terminals have proven extremely difficult to manufacture. Generally speaking the terminals have either been designed to be formed from a single piece of material (see Bonhomme U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,396,364 and 3,641,483) or to be built up or assembled from parts which include a plurality of individual contactor strips or wires (see Bonhomme U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,557,428 and 4,203,647). Where the terminal is formed from a one piece member, several rather complex machining and forming steps are required, while the construction of a barrel terminal starting with individial contactor strips involves a painfully tedious assembly process.
In our aforementioned parent application, there is disclosed a barrel terminal which can be readily contructed on a mass production basis from four basic parts-namely a cylindrical sleeve, a stamped sheet metal blank and a pair of annular rings which can be readily assembled in five simple steps.
The present invention is directed to additional embodiments of barrel terminals employing the basic concepts disclosed in the parent case, together with improved techniques for assembling such terminals.